Derek Powazek 🐐Criticizing mastodon continues to be the least fun thing to do on mastodon.
Y’all realize that accepting criticism and mining it for good ideas is just what you have to do when you run community projects, right? And that lack of criticism means you’re failing, because people don’t criticize things they’ve given up on, right?
The core problem with all social software is that it winds up being run by people who love software more than people.
When users of your project tell you what they need, they’re giving you a fucking gift. You should accept it with grace, even if you don’t like the content of it. It’s a gift. You say thank you. And then you think about it.
That doesn’t mean you do everything everyone asks. But there’s important shit to learn in there and if you run a community project it’s your job to find it.
And if you don’t want to deal with feedback from humans, try building software for goats* or something. Humans talk back. That’s kinda central to the whole premise of social software.
(*goats also talk back)
jwz
@jwz I keep asking my goats to explain that but they refuse.
James against the machine@fraying wired: try building *hardware* for goats 🤔
@j I have! Two barns and several play structures. They’re tough critics but they seem to like ‘em.
Bunnyjadwiga@fraying goats, however, do not expect you to listen, any more than they listen to you.
@bunnyjadwiga you don’t know many goats.
@fraying yeah, I guess my goat experience is limited and/or dated. My family kept goats 50 years ago, but since then I've only encountered them in passing.
[MESSAGE ME TO FOLLOW] green@fraying this is true of absolutely everything that has to do with dealing with other humans. feedback is *always* a gift; negative feedback is the *best* gift. I sincerely wish more purveyors of goods and services understood this principle, instead of letting their "customer service" people take it in the face and giving them no support or means to improve things while they toss the feedback directly into the garbage. and a customer/user who gets burned once will go through *tremendous* lengths to avoid repeating the process if at all possible.
skategoat 🐐 🇵🇸@fraying hello fellow goat enjoyer
ErosBlog Bacchus has moved!@fraying What? No! That's not it at all. Based on my experience offering user feedback, correct response is "Luser, if you care about that functionality all you need to do is write the function yourself and recompile from a clean Kyberzootes suite making sure to set the Warboggle controtes with a string of etherial fruit decompositors. Of course this only works on a virtual machine sandboxed in a software environment that you don't have access to, but how is that our problem? Learn to code!"
skybrianIt seems like this argument works both ways. When we get software or services for free, that's a gift too, so maybe we should say thank you, and be polite when offering criticism.
In a gift economy, it's all gifts. It all depends on goodwill. If people get nasty enough, nobody will feel like giving gifts anymore and the parties don't happen.
Also, maybe we should be wary of overvaluing our gifts? Giving appropriate gifts is hard! Often, a gift turns out to be unwanted waste.
Luis Villa@fraying Some of it winds up being run by people who love profits more than software or people? 😭
Andy Waschick@fraying Thats a broad brush to be painting with, homie. Can’t those of us who love software ALSO love people? I don’t care to be characterized as some affectless zomboid zero-empathy techno-hermit. I make machines do machine things so people who I care about are free to do people things.
@randywaterhouse what? A one sentence post lacks nuance? Almost like I was making one simple point that, were it not to apply to you, personally, might still be true in general? Wild!
@fraying If we’re going to pick nits on semantics… You did make an unequivocal and definitive statement, which included the term “all social software” - If there was a disclaimer to be made, you should have made it instead of assuming your audience thought exactly as you do. Use your words!
eevee 🦊@randywaterhouse @fraying Really getting that "loves people" vibe here yeah
@eevee @fraying I make the lives of my users better by using technology to reduce drudgery and repetition. This requires precision in word and deed. If I didn’t care (about my people) so much, I wouldn’t make a point of arguing the semantics of blanket statements that influence others to dismiss what I choose to spend my career doing.
William PietriExcellent work convincing this very people-oriented developer that you're entire in the wrong here.
Puppy PiThere's so much insanity here I don't have the mental energy to engage in this discussion beyond this post. But suffice it to say, you felt called out by something not directed at you at all (esp. if you're an automation not social networking engineer!!), took issue with it, thinking it called you a "affectless zomboid zero-empathy techno-hermit"
And now, because of victim complexness, toxic reply guy behavior in saying intelligence-insulting things to OP like "Use your words!" and "This requires precision in word and deed", pretending to not understand sentences like "The sky is blue" or "Engineers are bad at empathy" or "Men are jerks" or "Space is cold", and talking like you're a black kid from the hood ("homie") in one post and about your client *companies* having huge sums of money in another post, and etc. ..,
like half a dozen people and counting who didn't know you existed before now think you're a..lemme find the words.. oh right, an "affectless zomboid zero-empathy techno-hermit"
(Which is harsher language than I would have used, but you're the one who said it.)
..Smooth move xD
@randywaterhouse @codepuppy @eevee @fraying @williampietri if by "new friends" you mean "people who have watched you fit your entire ass into your own mouth and have come to the conclusion that you are, in fact, an affectless zomboid zero-empathy techno-hermit and plonked you into their block/mute folder," you are absolutely correct!
@codepuppy @eevee @fraying @williampietri Also I appreciate the special effort you have made to make me feel like such an out of touch jerk. I’ll be sure to integrate this into my ongoing loop of negative self-talk. We’re really living the dream here in this new social-media utopia.
You are really insistent on not taking feedback and not learning a lesson. Since you obviously won't hear it from us, would you please just show these posts to a trusted friend and ask them how you're coming across and if you're having the effect you want?
@williampietri @codepuppy Look who’s being condescending now.
For the record, you came out of nowhere to reply to someone's post and be paternalistic and insult the OP's intelligence. Don't do that and you won't get pushback that you find unpleasant.
(And fwiw xD, the actual original post is *literally* about how we *don't* consider this a new social media utopia and we have problems with how it's designed and how the people who design it have a hard time accepting criticism dslkfjflkj)
@eevee @fraying @williampietri
Okay I'm bowing out now; I got things to do with my life and energies, and this is enough for me on what I put the Content Warning as x'D
@randywaterhouse oh fuck off
Rue Ciphervale@fraying @randywaterhouse I choose to believe they are ironically demonstrating your point
C. E. M. Henderson@fraying the unaware-that-he-is-evidence-for-your-point reply guy you got on this is a real tour de force lol
Garden Variety Linguist@cemhend @fraying
Ruh-roh, this exchange has shades of T(w)itter all over it! Hard to decide if it's more like deja vu or a recurring nightmare. In a way it's a positive sign - it suggests #Mastodon is gaining in popularity.
It's a tough concept, but we frequently (in English at least) use hyperbolic language to make a point or start a conversation, without actually literally meaning what we're saying. It's being artistic with language, rather than precise, & like art, isn't appreciated by all!
Dan Lyke@fraying as long as that criticism is coming from people actually participating in the project. There are an awful lot of "I might use it if.." people out there who won't actually.
@danlyke When people tell you what they need, they’re giving you a gift. You should take it and say thank you.
@fraying maybe. I have a project that people use, and I love their feedback, and that people don't use but have opinions about, and I measure their suggestions carefully. The project is a gift to a community, and it's important to us building this project that those attempting to guide us have similar goals and visions for that community.
@danlyke I don’t know the specifics of your community, and every one is different, but I’ve heard a lot of programmers discount valid feedback based on the person giving it too many times. Be careful about that.
@fraying in this case it's a music player for (Modern Western) square dance callers, there seem to be a class of people outside that target audience who delight in "this would be awesome if it did [this thing that has nothing to do with our intended application]". They're total stop energy, because they have no intention of using the project for themselves, and don't understand the target audience, or the use pattern.
And yet they keep coming.
@fraying I have seen similar patterns in my blog support for various social media interop technologies. Fanboys of a particular set of buzzwords who aren't actually doing anything with them.
Like the guys who used to approach everyone writing software asking for Linux support, but who weren't gonna pay for the software.
@danlyke okay, well, today I was talking about mastodon and what I see here is a knee jerk response to criticism along the same lines. Sometimes when someone says “I’d use it but I have these particular needs” they’re being sincere.
BK Ryer@danlyke Is it somehow (too) expensive to ignore these un-wanted messages?
@bkryer it's spam, right? I've gotta engage the person enough to understand if they're coming from a place of participation, or drive-by sniping. Much like engaging people while assuming sincerity on social media.
Eventually the temptation to block and move on becomes strong, and that harms the community.
@bkryer the part that I struggle with is that good community needs exclusion, and the challenge is that making sure that the exclusion criteria filter for what I want in a community, and yet are still inclusive of diversity.
So many of the feature requests I've seen for and critiques of Mastodon break down some of the filters that I think improve this community. Which... All nice places are eventually destroyed, but we try to hold on... OTOH, maybe they will improve equity?
To make sure we are not just chasing chimeras I'll say it like this.
Equity can't be improved; you either have equity or you do not. Diversity can't be included; diversity IS inclusion.
What's missing in these equations of harmony sold as business plans is reliable identity. And the reason it is missing is because they can't sell it. And the reason they can't sell it is because reliable identity must exist outside the system of value to which it invites or bars you.
@bkryer thank you, I need to think about both these things. My first reaction is that I do not see equity as a binary except as a likely unachievable goal, but that's probably because I don't understand the word as a term of art.
And I think we understand "identity" differently, in my framework that's something largely held by the observer and influenced by identifiers held (or published) by the observed. "reliable identity" thus involves a lot of moving parts.
@danlyke Cheers. Equity as an on/off encourages me to think beyond the idealization to what would actually exist if "equity" were achieved? Different feelings? Statistical constants indicating good health? It’s tricky, maybe more than rocking rhymes right on time. And 'reliable identity' even more so. As you point out, this is quite distinct from popular current usage of the term.
So, yeah, It’s my contention that before long demand for a uuid/ssn/drvlic/passport, yes, a multi-pass Lilu, will exceed the surface tension of a thousand customer loyalty cards and, like mobile phones, okay like iPhones, before it, suddenly will be everywhere all at once.
@bkryer I'm gonna have to ponder that view of equity, I think that'll be an interesting way to think of the filters.
On a universal identifier, I think we're scarily closer to that now than I'd like to think (owned by Meta & Google), and I see a *ton* of value in not having such a thing. I think that identifiers should be as numerous as identities. We, as community builders, need to make the identity that people create in a social interaction then important enough that participants value it.
@danlyke
re: equity filtering, cool. perhaps also community self description as an adjunct to volume of and key matches in posts.
re: identity vs identifiers, the identity one creates inside a system, and the identifier one uses to get inside the system in the first place, are distinct.
Our personal identities, that first kind, are hyper-fractal soul flowers, in bloom, all the time. That our societies, as retro-grade as some elements doggedly remain, seems generally to approve and embrace people as people, no matter how unfamiliar, is pretty good stuff.
But I am bkryer, and I am bkryer everywhere because, well, everywhere I have ever been I have never not been me! I am happily responsible for my utterances and actions, off and online. This is not true of everyone, though, as far as I can tell.
@danlyke seeing that last sentence staring back at me it seemed increasingly passiv/aggro...so...ahem
It is unavoidable true that many individuals need anonymity for legitimate existential reasons, but the nonsense us 1%ers concern ourselves with has little existential consequence, no matter how much some claim it must.
But it does have some, and it’s critical to limit this as we are able. And the way justice is dispensed in our societies requires an identity incontrovertiblly linked to an action, because intent matters. And this identity must exist outside of the arena of action which is subject to the activities of enforcement, otherwise, well, look around.
I hope that is not to obtuse. Framed appositively: Bad actors must appear as not bad actors to be bad actors. If you let them in before you check you already lost.
These markks wanna hang. — Spark Master Tape
@danlyke ...sigh, yes, of course it is not possible to peer into an email-handle’s soul and infer tolerance if not compatibility with communal prerogatives. So we’ll have to solve that....
@bkryer agreement on identifiers vs identity, and...
me the square dance caller is different from me the woodworker is different from me the overly-helpful neighbor vs the not-me who uses a different name on certain web sites.
There's overlap, and it's not like I fight to keep those identities separate any more, but the nearly 3 decades-long friend I'm about to walk for coffee with has no interest in the kink-adjacent identity of me that shows up in other spaces...
@danlyke thanks for keeping this convo alive. We are getting down to important fundamentals here and you obviously have given this more than a little thought.
Expect more here later, and thanks for so far!
"Colin"@fraying yes, we realize this because a hundred people before you have already voiced this exact same "insight". most communities aren't lacking in ideas or feedback, they're lacking in labor. complaining doesn't fix that. like you point out in your first post, it just makes things worse. and yet you went ahead and did it anyway 🙄
@colin you missed my point completely.
@fraying i think i got your point: criticism is good, no matter how delivered and even if unrequested. it’s up to the receiver to sift the wisdom from the shit and then resolve the source of that criticism themselves. my critique here, in your words, is a “fucking gift” and you should say “thank you”.
honestly i’m not trying to caricature you. read back through your thread and judge if the above is a reasonable interpretation. i’m pretty much just exercising the advise you’re giving, against you, to see if you still believe in it when on the receiving end.
honestly i’m not trying to caricature you. read back through your thread and judge if the above is a reasonable interpretation. i’m pretty much just exercising the advise you’re giving, against you, to see if you still believe in it when on the receiving end.